A Bitter Parting
by Losseniaiel
Summary: Elrond and Arwen say their final farewells.


                                                                                                **A Bitter Parting**

**Disclaimers: **Not mine: never were, never will be.  This world belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien and his estate.  The description of the parting of Elrond and Arwen as 'bitter' comes directly from Return of the King.

**Rating:** PG.

**Summary:** Elrond and Arwen say their final farewells.

Thanks to Nemis for betaing and Kalurien for the plot bunny.

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They stood on the hilltop in silence, gazing at the deep blue of the sky. The clamour and bustle were left far behind them, and in this lofty place there were only the faint cries of hunting birds and the soft sigh of the wind against the grass and tumbled rocks, but it was not peaceful for the two figures, lonely despite themselves. Tension hung thick in the sweetly scented air, pounding with the beat of their hearts.

Arwen moved slowly towards the elf-lord who stood tall and imperious before her, his ageless face rigid with control.

"Ada? Will you not speak to me?" She stretched out one hand to touch the heavy brocade of his sleeve, but he recoiled as if her fingers burnt him.

"Ask no more of me than you already have. I have let you go. What more should I do than I already have? You are happy for the time being, but I am desolate, for I know what the future holds." His voice was hard and cold, like a sword in winter.

"But what shall I tell my children? Shall I tell them that their grandfather did not love them enough to bless them?" Arwen said pitifully.

"And what, pray, do you ask me to tell your mother, my Celebrían? With what words shall I comfort her when she knows that you have broken your promise to her, and will stay in Middle-earth and die and she will never look upon you again?" he snapped, impelled by grief.

At that moment he seemed more distant from her than the far peaks which rose in snowy grandeur on the far horizon, a great and terrible lord, but not her father.

"Ada?"

"Do not so name me, for you have renounced your ties to my kin. I have given you freely to the man I once called my son. I blessed this union, but do not ask me to rejoice in it, for it will be your destruction," he said with frightening bitterness.

Arwen smothered a gasp of dismay at his cruel words, which lacerated her heart, although she knew that they came from misery, not true hatred.

"Nay, say not so, for it will rather be my redemption. What would you do without mother?" she reasoned, her words calm although sadness marred her fair face.

Elrond bowed his head, and spoke softly to the flowers which waved in the breeze, "It is unjust to ask such things, when you know that I have lived many long years without her by my side."

"But do you not now pass West to your reunion with her?"

"Aye, I pass West, but you will pass beyond the Circles of Arda." Anger flamed in his clear grey eyes. "You will fail and grow old and die, as Elros did once, and the pain of your loss will be my undoing, as his was."

"The gift of Ilúvatar to Men is not such a terrible thing, for is he not merciful? And mayhap we shall meet again when all this has passed away," Arwen murmured hopefully, but as she looked over to her father, she saw that tears were now flowing freely down his deathly pale cheeks, dripping onto the fabric of his clothes.

"My brother said much the same thing, but it gave me no comfort then." He could barely choke the words out.

"Let it comfort you now."

"How can it?" he cried. "No parent is so made as to bear the death of a child with equanimity. You have wounded my heart with your choice, Undómiel, and some injuries never heal."

She took a resolute step forwards, and grasped his shoulders, although he would not meet her eyes.

"You may yet be healed in the Blessed Realm, if you allow yourself to be," she whispered, but he shook his head stubbornly. At his refusal to understand, she burst into tears as she had done as an elfling when frightened by some tale or rumour of distant fear, and buried her head against his velvet-clad chest

"Do not part from me in anger, Ada," she sniffled. "I implore you; do not hate me for the choices I have made, for I could make no other."

She suddenly appeared to Elrond as the child he had cradled when she awoke from nightmares, and who had peered over his shoulder with bright eyes as he contemplated important documents. The Queen of Gondor, that traitor to his heart, no longer stood before him, nor was the Evenstar of the elves there, but merely his daughter Arwen, her blue eyes, so like her mother's, brimming with tears. In that moment his reserve and fury deserted him. 

He brushed the tears from her cheeks before sinking to his knees on a lump of marbled stone in grief.

"Arwen, pen-nîn tithen, do not cry. I was selfish, but if you do not regret your choice, then I shall try not to."

Stooping, Arwen picked a fragile flower from amid the grass and tucked it into his dark hair, so like her own.

"Please stand, Ada. I wish I could sail to Valinor with Aragorn by my side, but that is not the fate of Men, and his destiny is entwined with that of Gondor and Arnor, and so I shall stay here, regretting only that I have caused you and Ammë so much pain."

Elrond rose slowly, as if burdened by the weight of his long years, and enveloped her in a hug, smoothing her hair with one tremulous hand, before adjusting the crown on top of it.

"Will you write to me?" he begged.

"I shall write to you as long as the ships sail from the Havens, and I pray that I shall have tidings of great joy to impart, and that my letters will ease your heart and my mother's."

"We will not speak again…"

"I know, for then your pain might be too great to bear." She straightened her garments.

"But you will always be in my heart, as we are both in Celebrían's," he promised, and they started to retrace their steps back to the plain.

"Bitter is our parting, my beloved daughter," he sighed, "and heavy is my heart, but I shall gain some hope from your belief that we will meet again beyond the ending of days."

"Do not lose that hope, though many long years pass," she replied with a small smile on her face, "for Estel and I will live on in your memories and hopes until we are indeed reunited. But until then, give my love to Ammë, and let her love for you balm your pain."

He nodded and, arm in arm, sorrow singing its melancholy tune in both their hearts, they made their way back to those who awaited them, and Elrond relinquished her hand to Aragorn Elessar, and they spoke no more.

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Ada – daddy, father (shortening of Adar – father).

pen-nîn tithen – my little one.

Ammë – mummy, mother.

Now, please review and tell me what you thought.


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